In Times Gone By
by fowl68
Summary: Dreams are made, fulfilled, shattered and put back together. Seraphim fic. A collection of drabbles and short one-shots. Yuartel. Some Kranna
1. Inviting Words

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **So I fell in love with this song and inspiration struck, despite the fact that this story took forever to put together. I debated leaving it all as one long fic or to break it up. Guess which one I chose.

Hurricanes on the horizon-not even kidding. It's raining like hell here and there are more storms right behind Isaac.

* * *

_There was a time when men were kind  
When their voices were soft  
And their words inviting._

Heimdall was a wonder on summer nights, Martel remembers. She remembers the way that fireflies would dance on the breeze and the way she and Papa would lay back on the grass and he would ask her what she saw. She remembers, somewhat, of sitting on a stump outside their small hut and watching as Mithos waddled to her from Mama's arms on chubby toddler legs.

She remembers listening to frog songs in the river and the cicadas constantly playing while she slept. She remembers sleeping without blankets because Heimdall became entirely too humid after it rained. She remembers her and another girl_ (She found it strange that she couldn't remember, but then, it had been more than ten years since they were cast out)_ daring each other to go further, further out into the Ymir Forest, to poke at the giant catfish beneath the water with a stick. She remembers laughing in delight when the catfish would surface; it had seemed so wondrous then.

And somewhere in the very far reaches of her mind, Martel remembers sitting at the Storyteller's feet during the warm summer nights when the fireflies danced on the breeze and the stars were clear in the sky. She remembers, vaguely, Mithos in her mother's arms and her leaning on Papa's shoulder as she listened to the Storyteller speak about the Summon Spirits and great heroes.

The Storyteller had a nice voice, she remembers. Lilting and with the musicality of the elves, but there had been passion there too, passion for what he did and the stories he told. For an entire month, Martel had wanted to be a Storyteller too, so that she could know such great tales. Her father had smiled sadly at her when she said that, but he never told her why.


	2. Love was a Song

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_There was a time when love was blind  
And the world was a song  
And the song was exciting._

Yuan had often imagined women's hands to feel much smaller—daintier, even—in his own. But Martel's didn't. Her hands were calloused and warm and slender, but not small, a trait from the lovely, long-limbed elves.

She laughed as she trailed behind him, hands still linked as he tried to convince her to come out to see this beautiful sight out behind the city. They stumbled on their way up the hill, their laughter sprawling behind them, reverberating out into the air, the grass, as Martel cursed at her dress, bunching the skirt in her free hand so it wouldn't trip her any longer.

By the time they reached the top, they're breathless from laughter and their cheeks were flushed from the light chill that settled over the land on spring mornings.

Martel looked around, tucking loose locks of her behind her triangular ears. The hills sprawled out, though she swore she could still smell the war lingering on the wind and the fires of the battlefield seemed to glow on one horizon while the sun rose on the other. The gentle dawn seemed so strange a sight when all she had known for weeks upon weeks had been the red of blood and the paleness of corpses with familiar faces.

Yuan wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his lips to the bend of her neck. "I thought you could use some reminding."

She leaned back into him. "Of what?"

"Of what we've been fighting for." They stood in comfortable silence for a long time, long enough for half the sun to be settled onto the horizon, its bright rays burning the sky orange. Yuan nudged her cheek with his nose. "…Do you ever think we could be heroes? Like in the old stories?"

"You sound like Mithos."

"I'm being serious."

"So's he. But I think so. Yeah, why not?"

He snorted. "Why not? Because we're soldiers and slaves' children. Those never change the world."

"Then perhaps we'll be the first."

The sound of his humming vibrated against her skin. "Perhaps."


	3. Wrong

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_There was a time ...then it all went wrong..._

The mud beneath his knees squished terribly and he knew that the knees of his breeches would be stained this awful red. There were footsteps almost directly behind him_ (As they have always been because they are Yuan-and-Kratos, one and the same, even now, especially now) _and the edge of Kratos' sword entered his peripheral vision. It only dripped more redterriblered, but it wasn't nearly so terrible because it wasn't _hers_.

"Martel?" Spirits, he'd forgotten about Mithos. In his confusion, he'd forgotten about the boy whose entire earth and stars revolved around his sister. And his voice—always cracking in strange places these days—was so weak, like he didn't want to believe it.

None of them did.

Her eyes—glassy with blood loss—sought out her brother. "Mithos…"

His hands clenched into white fists, shaking with rage that seemed too much for such a small body. "We got them, Martel. The bastards that did this."

"Don't…go saying things…like that." Even dying—the word hurt to think—she was still the mother, the big sister. She was always those things first. She looked around for Yuan, who gripped her hand—already feeling a little clammy—in his. He felt the wedding band pressing into his skin and it only made it hurt more. "You promised," she reminded him.

_("Don't die needlessly," she murmurs against his skin and he swears he won't because he doesn't ever want to leave this life that they have going for them)_

She knew him too well, knew that his own world was crumbling beneath his feet because what future could he have without her?


	4. Love Would Never Die

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_I dreamed a dream in time gone by  
When hopes were high and life worth living,  
I dreamed that love would never die  
I dreamed that God would be forgiving._

They seemed so naïve back then, now that he looked back. Had he really thought that they'd be able to live out their lives in a war-scarred world? That their children would ever smile like them, would ever have their eyes, their hair? Would ever see those children grow up in a world that didn't know war? That they'd laugh, not unkindly, at each other as they discovered silvering hairs.

How sweet a dream it felt like and Yuan buried his face in his hands. It had been centuries, millennia even, but sometimes, the pain—the _agony_—returned with a terrible whipping ferocity that left him breathless. Those times, he wanted nothing more than to see Martel again, to have her in his arms, to hear her laughter, to breathe in her scent once again. Those times, the seduction of Mithos' ideas was so tempting and sweet, sometimes he found himself standing in Derris-Kharlan, actually admiring what he saw.

But the thought of Martel always, ironically _(For the world is so very full of irony's bitter taste)_ brought him back, the thought of her reaction to what they'd done.

_(A voice in the back of his mind tells him that that the real reason that he's rebelling against Mithos isn't out of righteousness or justice or repentance. It isn't any of those things. It's because, if Mithos succeeds—as he is _so_ close to doing—then Martel will return and he knows what she would think when she learns of the horrors they've done in her name and he doesn't think he could ever bear to see her look at him with an expression of abhorrence and unrecognition. But there is always that hope that, perhaps, she could forgive them because that's always been who she is—_was, _he reminds himself sternly. Martel's dead and gone and immediately, all thoughts of what might happen if she were to return vanish because the dead can't come back…)_

But oh, how he wished they could.


	5. No Wine Untasted

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_When I was young and unafraid,  
When dreams were made and used and wasted.  
There was no ransom to be paid,  
No song unsung, no wine untasted_

Yuan hooked an arm around his best friend's shoulder. Kratos saw his mouth move, heard his voice, but he couldn't comprehend the words because right now, they were all riding a wonderful high of victory and the War was _over_ and could anything be more wonderful?

The four sat on a wall, overlooking the festivities at some point because they could only take so many congratulations and hearty slaps on the backs and women embracing them, thanking them for bringing back their sonshusbandsbrothersfathers. They passed a bottle of dusty, sour wine between them and Martel leaned against Yuan, their hands entwined, rings glinting in the starlight. Mithos bounced his heels against the wall and the movement was so childlike that it took Kratos a moment to remember that Mithos was hardly fourteen.

Kratos couldn't register who said it; it might even have been him. But one of them said, "We did it," like a quiet revelation and then, a little louder, firmly, more confident, "Hey, we did it."

They looked at each other, silent as they took it in. The words settled on their shoulders, shifting aside the weight of the world like a warm, old blanket. The chuckles began to bubble out of one of them before it spread to the others and soon their laughter rolled through the air, unrepentant and loud, perhaps with a slight hysterical edge because they hadn't slept in days and the War lingered in their minds, but oh, how free it felt!


	6. Tigers in the Night

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_But the tigers come at night,  
With their voices soft as thunder,  
As they tear your hope apart  
As they turn your dreams to shame_

It didn't start as a massacre. It started with a murder of a recently married half-elf_ (Lovely and kind and sweet and sassy and Mithos tries so hard not to think of Martel because that could be her)_ and then it had escalated, riots in the streets and neighbors turning on each other and he remembered running out in the middle of the night because of the shouting and staring because _why_? The war was over. Why couldn't they learn peace?

And Martel waded into it, snapping at people to stop fighting, dammit and Yuan was right behind her because he had a husband's instincts. Kratos was halfway down the stairs before he looked back up.

"Are you okay?" the human—well, not quite human anymore, but that was how he would remain in Mithos' mind—asked.

Mithos shook himself free and followed Kratos down the stairs. "Yeah, just—still tired, y'know?"

And Kratos did know because the tiredness isn't a physical one. It was a life-tired, one that dragged at the limbs and sunk upon the shoulders and dropped the eyelids until one wanted no more than to simply hide from the world for a while.


	7. When Autumn Comes

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_He slept a summer by my side.  
He filled my days with endless wonder,  
He took my childhood in his stride,  
But he was gone when autumn came._

_And still I dream he'll come to me_  
_And we will live the years together..._

She was able to speak, for a while. She would manage to rip free from the Cruxis Crystal's grasp for a minute or two and speak and see and the first time she did, Yuan had stared at her with a terrible, heartbreaking expression because the man sitting there was not the man she knew, wasn't the one she'd danced with under the stars, wasn't the one she'd lay beside in their marriage bed and wasn't the one who'd held her hand as she died.

This man was infinitely older in some non-physical way and his eyes are reddened at the edges, like he'd been crying. "Martel?"

He could see her too. Small blessings. She didn't know what to say, didn't know what she possibly could say for this because she was _dead_, she knew that. Or she was supposed to be. "…You're not hallucinating, if that's what you're wondering."

Yuan's jaw tightened for a moment. "You're dead." The word trembled in the air, even if Yuan's voice didn't. It was some kind of confirmation, something to reaffirm reality and Martel was glad she couldn't flinch anymore.

"I know. I-I miss you. And everyone, really."

His eyes dropped and she saw the ring still on his finger_ (Until death do us part…)_. "…I miss you too. Every day. And you know Kratos, he won't say anything, but he misses you too. I can tell." And no words needed to be said for Mithos' grief.

The last time she could make herself appear before him, make herself get free of the Cruxis Crystal, Yuan was there and perhaps he could tell how very tired she was. Or perhaps it was his own weariness reflected on his face.

"I won't be able to do this again," she warned him. _(She wishes she could have seen Kratos again, but Yuan never brings him because he's a bit selfish and a bit ashamed which hurts a little because Kratos-and-Yuan are more than a little broken and she doesn't know why, will never know why because she's fading and soon she'll be nothing but the Crystal)_

The Yuan she remembered would have snapped at her to stop thinking like that, would have told her to stop being ridiculous. But this Yuan was not the one she remembered and he was no optimist.

But there was a glimmer of him beneath the layers of Time and sorrow and the twist of his lips that Martel supposed was a smile was crookedly familiar. "Best we make good use of the time we have then."


	8. Storms Unweathered

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything! The words in italics are from Les Miserables and I completely recommend Lea Salonga's voice singing if you want to hear this song. It's called The Dream I Dreamed.

**Author's Note: **

* * *

_But there are dreams that cannot be  
And there are storms we cannot weather._

Even when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Anna. Her loud laughter—unashamed and reveling in the way it didn't echo back to her in a cell's confines—the way her eyes blazed in a temper, which he seemed talented in igniting. He saw Lloyd, chubby child's cheeks and bright smile, his small hands tugging at his own, curled in Noishe's fur.

_(They're gone, deaddeadandgone and they can't come back)_

Yuan would find him soon—Yuan always found him—and Yuan didn't think that Kratos knew about the rebellion, didn't know about the lone building hiding out in the fringes of the desert, of the snow-blasted walls of the new one in Flanoir.

On cue, Yuan was in the room, not having bothered to knock because some old habits died hard, if they ever died at all. There was a new hollowness in Yuan's eyes that Kratos knew he was responsible for_ (Because Yuan had liked Anna, had liked her sass and her blood is on Kratos' hands and it won't wash off, he's tried…)._

Yuan took a seat beside him and they were mirror images of remnants of broken families. He didn't quite know what to say.

There was an old dullness that echoed in a way that Kratos had forgotten and he rather hated it because all it did was remind him that Anna was gone, as was Lloyd and Martel and all he wanted was them _back_. "…Mithos was right. Look where all this has led. If we can stop it all, we should."

And Yuan didn't say anything about the Renegades and how Kratos could fit there. Didn't say a word of how there _had_ to be a way to stop Mithos because he knew this Kratos, knew the bruised, haunted eyes looking out from the familiar planes of his face and knew that there was no talking sense into him. Particularly not now.

But he knew that, with those words, with Anna's death, he could never trust Kratos again, could never speak honestly with him, or spar with him. Could never be anything but subtle enemies, could never be friends or brothers again because he drew the line at Mithos' ideals, at Mithos' dreams. And some lines simply couldn't be erased.

_I had a dream my life would be  
So different from this hell I'm living  
So different now from what it seemed!  
Now life has killed the dream  
I dreamed..._


End file.
